Current areas of research:

London and New York stages in the 19C with a particular focus on the performance and acting styles of George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready, Edwin Forrest and Charlotte Cushman and also Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Duff.

Recent papers and talks

At present I am preparing a talk – Edmund Kean (1787-1833) Shakespearean actor and RichmondTheatre Manager– for the Richmond [Surrey] Local History Group which will be given in March 2018.

In February 2017 the Royal Society for Arts – The William Shipley History Group held a one day Symposium in London: The Undisputed Monarch of the English Stage, David Garrick (1717-1779).I was invited to give a paper:

Garrick’s acting and his techniques and how these may have been absorbed by the following generation of actors, that is Garrick’s successors.*

The paper was repeated for members of the Garrick Club in May 2017

The Society for Theatre Research: in August 2016 on behalf of the Society, I convened a conference held at Downing College, Cambridge: Theatre in the Regency Era: Plays, Performance, Practice: 1795-1843.I gave a paper which dealt with George Frederick Cooke’s death in America and who then might have taken his head: title – The Skull in a Glass Case; Or, the Case of the Actor who Lost His Head.

Previous papers include:

Macready & Forrest: A Fatal Controversy; Or, It started with a Hiss: Society for Theatre Research members. The paper explored the fatal dispute between William Charles Macready and the American actor Edwin Forrest.

An Unrequited Profession – this paper discussed Sir Henry Irving and his successors and was given to the Irving Society.